


raw sugar

by ElisAttack



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky's a veritable zookeeper, Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-World War II, Steve crosses time and dimensions for Peggy… and Bucky, Time Travel Fix-It, a honeymoon spent kicking names and taking ass back from Soviet hands, minus the cages, oh hey I can't believe this is actually, so much domesticity you’re gonna hurl, someone better call the neighbourhood association, specifically Bucky’s ass, these terrors don’t belong in the ‘burbs, three chaotic bisexuals with varying levels of competency
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-02-21 16:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18705661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisAttack/pseuds/ElisAttack
Summary: Sometimes he thinks about the Steve Rogers of this timeline.  Slumbering, encased in ice at the bottom of the ocean with no end in sight, and he thinks; good.  At least that poor bastard has finally caught a break.Or the one where Steve has loved two people his entire life, and both of them have no idea who, or what, he is.





	1. Steve

**Author's Note:**

> Canon has finally given me the opportunity to write the World War Threesome fic I've always wanted, so this is me doing just that.
> 
> Take note, I've never watched Agent Carter, so when I say this is canon compliant, I mean to the movies. 
> 
> Finally, to clear things up, Steve doesn't go back in time, so much as he jumps into another time stream/universe, which means that there are two Steve Rogers in this, technically. Capsicle doesn't make an appearance, cause I'm not touching that complication with a ten foot pole, but yeah, that's what's up.

Sometimes he thinks about the Steve Rogers of this timeline.  Slumbering, encased in ice at the bottom of the ocean with no end in sight, and he thinks; good.  At least that poor bastard has finally caught a break.

“Phillips wants you to run for office,”  Peggy says, climbing into bed immediately after returning from her phone call in the lobby.  Even with his enhanced hearing, Steve could not hear a single word exchanged, which means none of the other boarders could too.  They’re in enemy territory, they need all the privacy they can get.

She slides under the rough sheets, and tucks her perpetually cold feet beneath his knees.  Even now, months later, Steve still finds it difficult to believe that he gets to have this.

“I would rather eat my shoe,”  Steve says without hesitation, turning a page in his book.  A year in DC was enough time for him to understand just how politics works.  And he wants nothing to do with it, thank you very much.

She laughs, smiling at him with affection in her eyes.  “I told him you would say that.”

Steve pouts, setting his book down in his lap, giving her his full attention.  “Did he even ask after our honeymoon?”

“He’s too professional to involve himself in the personal life of a subordinate, something I am eternally grateful for.”  She rolls her shoulders, and tsks in frustration, “Help me, darling?” She turns her back to Steve, hunched after a day’s work spent pouring over maps and intel.  “Could you imagine if he asked after the weather? What on earth could I possibly tell him; sunny with a fat chance of bullshit?”

He can imagine, since they’re not actually honeymooning in Monaco, and unfortunately weather apps do not yet exist.  Steve says nothing, he just reaches under her blouse and snaps open her brassiere’s clasp. She relaxes almost instantly, and gifts him a tired smile over her shoulder.

“You need to sleep,”  Steve says.

“I can sleep when I’m dead,”  Peggy says, stretching her arms over her head, spine cracking.  She misses the distraught look on his face. Bucky always said he wears his heart on his sleeve, and God knows he’s practically incapable of hiding anything from Peggy.  She can read him like a book. These few months they’ve spent together have been a crash lesson in learning how to talk around the truth—

_He let her assume that he was fished out of the Labrador Sea by a kindly fisherman.  That he caught an Allied transport to New York, just in time to arrive at the Stork Club on the promised Saturday.  No, sorry, he doesn’t recall the name of the transport’s captain, nor the fisherman for that matter. He does remember the freezing ice, and the thought that he would die alone, cold—  oh, no, please don’t cry..._

—learning how to manipulate Peggy so she doesn’t ask difficult questions he cannot answer.

“I know we’re close, I can practically smell it,”  she says confidently.

Steve picks up his book, hiding his face behind it.  Painted red nails cover the words as Peggy pushes it back down.  “What’s wrong?” She asks. Concern brews in her eyes, and Steve wants nothing more than to tell her that everything is alright, but it’s already been established that Steve cannot lie to her.

A loud burst of laughter echoes in the hallway, and Peggy stiffens.  Without hesitation, she reaches for the bedside drawer, and the pistol stashed within.  Steve hears whispered words in Russian, followed shortly by what can only be described as enthusiastic fonduing.  Then, creaking shuffling on half rotten floorboard, and a door shuts somewhere down the hall. Peggy finally relaxes.

“What if we can’t find him?”  Steve asks in a quiet voice. In those first few months after bringing down the Helicarriers, Steve memorized the entire contents of the Winter Soldier file, reading it each and every night.  He could recite it by heart backwards and upside down if so prompted, but even a serum enhanced memory cannot make up for information that does not yet exist. James Buchanan Barnes only appears in Hydra records when Arnim Zola purchases him, years from now, frozen, missing an arm, exactly how he was when the Soviets pulled him from the river.

Steve has no intention of letting him fall into Hydra’s hands this time around.  He has failed the people he loves time and time again. Not everyone gets a second chance, but dammit if he isn’t going to make the most of his.

“I’ve never known you to shy away from an impossibility, have I?”  Peggy asks, and Steve’s heart thrums away at the affection in her voice, at her belief in him which has never wavered, not once.

He pulls her down for a long, lingering kiss.  After all, they’re on their honeymoon.

***

Their first conversation about Bucky goes something like this:

“He’s alive, Peggy.  They have him, the Russians do.  Please don’t ask me how I know.”

After a long moment of silence during which Steve feels like a insect under a microscope, she sighs.  “Well, alright,” she says, her chin resting on his collarbone.

It’s their wedding night, and Steve has never been happier, but the gaping hole left by his missing best man is a space not easily filled.  However much Jim tried his best.

“Alright?”  Steve questions, drawing a circle on her bare shoulder.  It’s only been a few hours since they said their vows, but the ring on his finger is a comforting weight he never wants to lose.

Peggy rolls onto her back, and Steve finds his gaze drawn to the smeared lipstick on her chin.  He flushes, remembering the oily taste of it on his tongue.

“Yes.”  Peggy stares up at the ceiling, then she looks at Steve with nothing short of iron-clad determination.  “I suppose we’ll just have to bring him home.”

***

When Steve marries Peggy the first thing he promises her is autonomy.  She already has his love, and she owns half of his heart, she never needed meaningless words of devotion when actions speak much more than words ever could.  What she did need, however, as an outstanding woman in a time when outstanding women are passed over in favour of mediocre men, was reassurance that Steve would never hoard power over her.

She loves him, but she knows better than anyone the weakness of men.

Fortunately, Steve was raised by an outstanding woman himself, one who mired in a man’s world; an immigrant, widowed, with a young child to feed.  People whispered all sorts of shit behind Sarah Rogers’ back, yet she held her head high. She taught Steve how to wrap his bruised knuckles, how to sew his own sutures, but most importantly, she taught him how to be a decent man.

And a decent man would never bind a woman to the laws of those who cannot tell the difference between love and possession.

When he says his vows, he makes it clear that he will never hold her back for the sake of his own ego, nor the egos of others.  He promises to fight for her freedom, but he also promises that she can choose when to weather her own battles.

She accepts everything with tears in her eyes, and her own promises of love, devotion, protection, but most of all, truth.

Steve calls himself a decent man, but a decent man would never deceive someone he loves.  God preserve him, but his ma must be rolling in her grave.

***

Steve adores all of Peggy.  He loves the birthmarks on her body.  He loves the cellulite on her chest and thighs, and how her right breast is slightly lower than the left.  He loves the scars: the knife wounds, the perfect puckered circle of a gunshot wound on the meaty part of her calf, the slight unevenness of a long healed collarbone break, and the mark on her pelvis from a childhood appendectomy.

He could sing praises to Peggy Rogers née Carter, but sometimes she scares the ever living shit out of him.

She digs her heel into the knee of the officer they’ve tied to a chair, and he shrieks behind the gag stuffed in his mouth.

Peggy says something particularly venomous in Russian, gesturing to a nearby table where they've laid out a pair of rusty pliers, among other things they have no intention of using.  The officer nods his head frantically.

With a tilt of the head from Peggy, Steve reaches out, and yanks the gag from his mouth.  Immediately, he starts yelling up a storm. Steve doesn’t have to understand his language to know that he’s screaming for help.  A fruitless endeavour, really.

Peggy crosses her arms over her chest, and waits for him to wear himself out.  She doesn’t have to wait long. His shrieks taper off into quiet sobbing, which eventually falls to silence.  

They’re in an abandoned hunter’s cabin in the middle of the forest, miles away from any trace of civilization, but there’s no way the officer knows that.  He was chloroformed and stuffed in a trunk for the entire hour long journey. When he woke, he probably thought he was still inside Leningrad.

Tears roll down his cheeks, snot is smeared across his face, and every once in a while a miserable hiccup falls from his throat.

Sometimes, Steve catches himself feeling sorry for the man, but then he remembers that he was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of starving civilians a few short years ago, and all traces of guilt disappear in a hurry.  Besides, they’re not planning on permanently harming him, just scaring him until he gives them the information they need.

At the boarding house they were posing as a socialist-inclined English couple on their honeymoon, but here they’re meant to be Russian, so as not to attract the attentions of those who would question why foreigners are kidnapping Soviet officers.

Unfortunately, the only languages Steve knows are French and Italian.  He can't open his mouth without giving away the jig, so he's playing the part of Peggy's muscle to her brains.  He prays she won't tease him too much about it later down the road.

Besides, she's doing well enough on her own.

The man blubbers something, and Peggy's brow lifts.  With a finger under his chin, she tips his head back to look at her.  She says something soothing, gentle, and the man cracks.

Words fall out of his mouth like rain, and Steve doesn't need to know Russian to understand that this is the break they need.  He can read it in the thinly disguised elation on Peggy's face. She'll never be as good at boxing away her emotions as Nat was, but then again, Nat was a different sort of beast altogether.

She picks up the gag, and stuffs it back in the officer's mouth.  Turning on her heel, she leaves without a word. Steve follows her outside the cabin, shutting the door after him.  The woods are encased in an impenetrable blanket of fog, the smell of rotting pine needle duff high in the air.

Steve takes Peggy's hands, chasing away the cold as he pulls her closer.  “Do you know where he is?” He asks, burying his nose in her soft hair.

“Yes,”  she states plainly.  “He's in a facility to the north of here, a few hours' drive.”

Steve closes his eyes, and for the first time in a long time he thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything will turn out alright.


	2. Peggy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you all should know that I spent an obscene amount of time researching 1940s Soviet era vehicles for this chapter, specifically the ZIS-5 lorry.

 

Peggy knows exactly why Flynn gave her grief for taking her honeymoon, and it isn’t because she’s a valued member of the team.  Miller was allowed a month’s leave for his broken nose, one he didn't even acquire while on the job. _A broken nose_.  During the war she returned to the field a mere two weeks after being shot in the leg, because the earth keeps on turning, and intelligence still needs collecting.  That’s just the way it is in this bitch of a world.

A career woman must always choose between her family and work.  Men are allowed a certain amount of work-life balance. But god forbid if a woman wants to vacation with her war hero husband in Monaco.  Somebody's bound to assume she'll return pregnant and house bound.

They only spent a few hours in Monaco, during which Peggy took enough photographs of Steve standing under palm trees, to satisfy her mother.  Amanda Carter adores Steve, despite the fact that he’s an American, and a Yankee at that; two things she once claimed to detest. Then she met Steve, and he smiled his brilliant smile, and she forgot every single prejudice she ever held.  Well, she still hates the French, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Before they crossed the ocean, Howard handed Peggy a file with everything they needed for the mission.  Including a slip of paper that led them to an informant’s apartment, only a few steps from the Monte Carlo.  The man—a twitchy scientist who defected from the Soviet Union a decade ago—gave them a list of names, and a warning to avoid Siberia, if they knew what was good for them.

So far they haven’t ventured that far east.  But if push comes to shove, and this new lead—direct from the mouth of one Lieutenant Makarov, currently locked in a trunk stashed in their lorry’s bed—turns into nothing, they might just have to.

Peggy hopes it doesn’t come to that.

Rain patters against the windshield, and every so often Steve pulls the lever at the side of the cab, cleaning the glass of a buildup of drops.  Peggy’s kicked off her boots, feet tucked under her arse on the bench seat, her fingers cold. The heat blowing off the engine block can only do so much when the window looking onto the cargo bed is cracked, a cold breeze whistling through.

“ _Net_?”  Steve says questioningly, his pronunciation as atrocious as ever.  Peggy isn’t surprised, Steve speaks French with a Brooklyn accent heavier than when he speaks English.  The army coached the Metropolitan out of him before he began the USO tour, but they never bothered with other languages.

Peggy chuckles.  " _нет_ , darling.”

“ _Ni-et_?”

She shakes her head.  “You look the part, Steve, but the moment you open your mouth, it’s game over.”  His stolen uniform strains at the seams, but his blonde hair and defined jaw resemble the nameless figures in Soviet propaganda posters all too well.

“Well,”  Steve says, good naturedly, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lip,  “I’m not an accomplished spy, unlike some people.”

Peggy pats the hand Steve rests on the gear shift.  “Hush now. We’ll just stick to our original story, and say you lost your voice in the war.”

They haven’t come across a checkpoint yet, but it’s only a matter of time.  The forest may be crawling with nothing but deer and the occasional bear, but roads are few and far between, and they are heavily guarded.  They only have a few days to find Barnes before they have to report back to the train station in Moscow with him in tow. The exit visas of Grant and Elizabeth Carter, and their friend, Joe Buchanan, have a set date and time printed on them.  If they miss their departure, they’ll have the entire army scouring the surrounding oblasts, looking for tourists of their description. Which is the last thing they want, considering they’re currently playing the part of a Soviet officer and his secretary.

Steve’s fingers drum out a beat on the wheel, humming under his breath a song she’s never heard before.

“What is that?”  She asks after a while.

Steve blinks, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.  His fingers immediately stop, like he didn’t realize he was moving them in the first place.

“It’s been stuck in my head for a while,”  he admits sheepishly.

“From the war?”

“Something like that,”  Steve says.

Peggy frowns.  Ever since Steve returned, something has been off about him.  Little things; unnoticeable to most, but she always noticed Steve before, and she notices him now.  His vernacular has changed. He uses words she’s never heard an American say before. And the way he looks at her when he thinks she hasn’t noticed, well, it just rips her heart out.  He stares at her like she’s the sun, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with it except love him more.

Peggy nods.  “We’ll just have to buy the record when we return home.”

The lorry shakes as they drive over a stretch of uneven ground, littered with flooded potholes and tree stumps, and Steve’s attention returns to the road.

The map Howard included in the file shows nothing but forest until Arkhangelsk, and yet there is a road under their wheels, albeit a rudimentary one.

Howard is the only one who knows of their little sojourn into Russia.  If the good Colonel knew, he would have their heads. The tensions between America and the Soviet Union are tenuous as it is without an unsanctioned rescue mission added to the mix.  Not to mention, it’s unlikely Phillips would have believed Steve, and he actually trusts Steve’s judgement.

One of the reasons why Peggy is going along with this is because she loves Steve more than life itself, and she knows the importance of hope.  It being the reason she flew all the way to the States while the war was still on, just to spend what she assumed would be a depressing evening at a club in Manhattan.  A decision, which turned out to be one of her better ones.

The other reason has to do with the fact that she’s been doing nothing but data analysis at the SSR since the war ended.  She’s bloody well bored out of her mind. Steve offered to have a _talk_ with Flynn about his refusing to put Peggy in the field, but she has no desire to use Steve’s fame to further her own career.

“Shit,”  Steve mutters under his breath, and Peggy looks out the windshield.  They’ve just reached the crest of a hill. At the very bottom sits a fence, barbed wire strung across the top of a gate.  It’s the checkpoint they’ve been expecting, manned by four soldiers carrying rifles.

“Remember.  Mute,” she says to Steve, tension rolling off him in waves.  He’s really not meant for undercover work, but he’ll have to do.

She slips back into her boots.  Reaching under the dashboard, she pulls her pistol from its hiding place, replacing it with the folded map—a circle marking the location of the facility a few miles beyond this fence.  She places the pistol on her lap, out of view.

The lorry comes to a stop, and Peggy rolls down her window, a wide smile plastered on her face.  One of the soldiers approaches her, while the other circles around, eyeing Steve curiously. Steve’s dressed in an officer’s uniform, and plays the part well enough, staring out the windshield, not bothering with the soldiers under him.

“ _привет, товарищ_ ,”  she greets the soldier in the usual address.  He returns her smile with one of his own, and she thanks the universe for the folly of men who underestimate women.  Peggy produces the papers she forged; Lieutenant Makarov’s picture carefully replaced with Steve’s. The soldier barely glances them over, too busy batting his eyelashes at her.

The lorry jerks when the soldier who went around to Steve’s side climbs into the bed.  Surreptitiously, she glances at his reflection off the fuel gauge, resting her finger on the pistol’s trigger.

Steve takes a sharp breath when the soldier stops in front of the trunk containing one hogtied officer, stripped of the uniform Steve is now wearing.  Thankfully, he passes it by. Nodding to the soldier talking with Peggy, he jumps down from the bed. They wish her and the lieutenant a nice day, waving them through the gate.

It’s only when the gate disappears from view that Steve relaxes.

“Are you okay?”  Peggy asks, worried.

Steve chuckles under his breath.  “I’m used to rushing into everything, guns-a-blazing.  This sneaking around isn’t really my style, but then again we did leave my bulletproof shield at home ‘cause you said it was too recognizable.”

“That’s because it is.  Spend more time with me on missions, and you’ll get used to the sneaking around.”

“I don’t doubt it.”  He smiles at her in a way that sends a shiver to her very core.  “Have I told you how much I love you for this?”

He doesn’t have to clarify what ‘this’ is.  She knows exactly what he means. Believing in him, coming with him, helping him, and respecting the life of a man she barely knows, just because Steve loves him.

“It comes with the ring on your finger, darling.”

***

Their good luck lasts all the way until the head officer guarding the facility takes one look at the forged papers, then back at Steve, and says something along the lines of, ‘you’re not Lieutenant Makarov.’

It ends with the trunk holding the actual Lieutenant Makarov taking an entire round of friendly fire, and Steve throwing a motorcycle through a line of Soviet soldiers.  At least Peggy knows it wasn’t the quality of her forgery that was faulty, but the intelligence.

“We have to hurry, before reinforcements arrive,”  Peggy says, stripping a soldier of a rifle he’s definitely not using anymore.  She can already hear the rumbles of engines in the distance.

Steve shakes his head,  “Pegs, I have to keep our exit clear.”  He goes over to a nearby supply lorry, ripping the door right off the hinges, holding it in front of him like a makeshift shield.

Her heart drops into her stomach.  “Steve…”

“C’mon, I trusted you to do your job, let me do mine.”

“Stubborn ass,”  she mutters, grabbing him by the collar of his uniform, pulling him into a searing kiss.  “Don’t you dare get shot,” she whispers fiercely, pushing him away.

“Same goes for you,”  he says weakly, a delightful flush on his cheeks.  Fuck, the way he blushes like an Irishman with a sunburn sets her on fire.

Peggy shoulders the rifle, and spares one more look at Steve.  With her trusty pistol in hand, she strides in through the facility doors that Steve kindly kicked open.  It’s a relatively small building on the surface, but it immediately becomes very clear, as the floor slopes downwards, that it stretches deep into the earth.

Gas lights illuminate the dim corridors, lined with pipes and wires of different sizes.  On the surface she noticed a large shed with a smoke stack, perhaps holding a generator? Whatever they’re using this facility for, it consumes a lot of energy.

Thoughts of atomic bombs lie at the forefront of her mind.  She shudders, and it has nothing to do with the damp emanating from the rock all around her.

Keeping her pistol raised, she turns corner after corner, constructing a mental picture of the facility in her mind as she goes.  It’s a maze down here. It won’t do her any good to get lost. She assumed Barnes would be kept in a prison, a Gulag camp of sorts, but this is something else entirely.

A heavy door lies at the bottom of a set of steps.  She tries the handle and finds it locked. Peggy pulls her trusty lockpick from her pocket.  A few seconds later, and the tumblers click. She opens the door to a surprised man in a grey lab coat sitting at a desk.  His eyes fall to her uniform, but then dart to her American pistol, and his brows furrow even more as he seems to put two and two together.  He reaches for a red phone on his desk, but she shoots him in the head before he can touch it.

“I do hope you were a very bad man,”  she whispers, stepping over his body.

She’s in a large room, an office perhaps, full of cabinets and shelving.  The only source of light is a lamp, now splattered with blood. Peggy touches the walls by the door, searching.  She finds the light switch almost immediately, and flicks it on.

“What on earth,”  she mutters to herself.

Right in the centre of the room sits a machine, imposing in size.  Wires and tubing protrude from the riveted metal. It looks like something Howard would build, uncomfortably resembling the vita ray machine that transformed Steve into Captain America.  A dark porthole sits at the very top, and Peggy grabs a chair from a nearby desk. Setting it in front of the machine, she climbs up, peering in through the pitch black. She touches the machine to keep her balance, and immediately blue lights switch on inside.

Peggy gasps, and nearly falls off the ladder.

A familiar face lies within.  The glass is partially obscured by a thick layer of frost, but Steve keeps a picture of James Barnes on their mantle, and she would recognize the shape of that brow anywhere.

“Fuck,”  Peggy whispers to herself, climbing off the chair.  Is he dead? She marches over to the cabinets, and skims over the Cyrillic labels, but they’re all in code.  Meaningless words galore. “Fucking fuck,” she repeats once more for emphasis, dropping her head to her hands.  But then, beneath her fingers, a label.

 _Американец_.

The word stares back at her.   _The American_.  She hurries to open the drawer.

Flipping through the folders reveals a great many interesting things.  Grabbing a briefcase from under the man she shot, she wipes away the blood, and divests it of its contents.  Then she starts packing away each and every folder. There’s one labelled with the Russian name for Hydra, and she makes sure to add it to the case, the pile teetering dangerously.

Nearing the end of the drawer, she finally finds what she was looking for.  Opening it reveals blueprints for the machine holding Barnes’ body.

“Suspended animation,”  she mutters to herself. Glancing back towards Barnes, her eyes widen.  “He’s alive.”

She dives back into her pile of folders, choosing one that looks promising.   It’s a series of reports written by a doctor. According to him, Barnes suffered a massive trauma, but he don’t specify of what kind.  The doctors managed to stabilize him, and while doing so noticed that he had an accelerated healing factor. Barnes recovered from what ailed him in only a few days.  Then it goes on to outline an escape attempt Barnes made, which ended in the deaths of two soldiers. That’s when the decision was made to put him on ice.

Peggy lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, then sets about digging up operating procedures for the machine.

Apparently, in the event of generator failure the machine is set to automatically defrost its contents safely.

Peggy refers back to the blueprints, picks up her gun, and decisively shoots two of the wires that disappear through a grate in the ceiling.  Sparks fly, the lights flicker, and the machine beeps. A hissing comes from the vents in the sides, followed by thick clouds of vapour. She returns her pistol to its holster.

Peggy waves away the stench of ozone, fighting with the briefcase lid, trying to close it with everything packed inside.  Eventually she succeeds, flipping the clasp. Setting the briefcase at her feet, she stands in front of the machine, waiting.

The palms of her hands itch in a way they haven’t since she stood at the Stork Club's bar, waiting for a man she knew would never show.  James Barnes is Steve’s best friend, his brother, and the only person other than his mother he’d admit to loving as much as Peggy.

The machine's door slams open with enough force to rock the entire contraption.  Barnes wavers like a straw house in a storm, then crumbles. Peggy is there to catch him.  He falls into her arms, and her knees fold under his weight. He ends up in her lap, both of them sprawled to the floor.  He’s cold as ice, with at least a month’s worth of beard on his face. Oh, and he’s missing his left arm. Massive trauma indeed.

“Barnes,”  she says, heart in her throat.  Shaking, she reaches down to take his pulse, only to find it racing.

A hand darts out, wrapping around her wrist in a punishing grip.  Her bones creak, and she winces in pain.

“Barnes, it’s me,”  she says, before he does something he regrets.

Barnes’ eyes crack open, and they aren’t groggy at all.  They’re sharp, conniving. He was playing weak to lower his opponent’s guard.  His fingers tighten.

“It’s Peggy!”

He looks up into her face, and recognition flashes.  He drops her hand like a hot potato. She rubs the skin, but it’ll surely bruise.

“Peggy?”  His voice comes out in a rasp.  Immediately, those sharp eyes fall to her left hand.  “You’re _married_?”

It’s such a surprising thing to notice, Peggy has no idea what to say.  She gapes like a fish out of water.

Feet thump down the flight of stairs, and Peggy already has the rifle pointed at the doorway when Steve rushes through.

“Shit.  You scared me,”  she breathes, lowering the gun.  “The way is clear, I assume?”

“Steve,”  Barnes whispers.  “They told me you were dead.”  His voice is so painful, so broken down, Peggy stares at him in surprise.

What she sees on Barnes’ face is so familiar, because she wears the exact same expression when she looks at Steve.  It’s awe, desperation, a love that could set the world ablaze. Barnes never looked at Steve like that before. Or maybe she just never noticed.

Steve smiles.  It’s full of relief, but something sits deeper and darker in the wrinkles around his eyes.  He didn’t have those in the war, Peggy realizes. Before, yes, when he was small, and she wanted nothing more than to wrap him in her arms, and kiss the weight of the world from his brow.  The serum erased everything, made him golden anew, made it so his cells would divide and divide and divide, expunging the war from his body.

“Funny, I thought the same thing about you,”  Steve says, and she barely recognizes the man in front of her.

***

 _It’s not just that Steve looks older_ , she thinks, pressing the gas pedal, trying to put as much distance between them and the flaming inferno they left behind as humanly possible.

_It’s everything about him._

Steve doesn’t like to talk about the Valkyrie, and Peggy respects that.  There are things she too refuses to discuss; like her brother’s death. There are even things Steve doesn’t know about, and will never know about; like boarding school, and a girl named Kitty.

Barnes sits between them on the bench seat, dressed in a uniform they liberated from the facility’s sleeping quarters.  The clothes he was frozen in, they left to burn up with the scientist they stuffed in the machine in Barnes’ place.

Peggy glances at him out of the corner of her eye, worried.  He hasn’t said anything since Steve carried him out of the facility in his arms, when he uttered a quiet ‘thank you’ in return.  She clears her throat, feeling two sets of eyes land on her. “We’re already readied your papers. From now, until we touch down in the States, your name is Joe Buchanan.”

“States?”  Barnes murmurs.  “The war is over?”

Peggy nods.  “It is.”

“Did we win?”  He asks, quiet.

“Yeah, Buck,”  Steve pipes up, his tone grim.  “We did, but it came with a huge price.  I’ll tell you about it when we get home.”

“Home,”  Barnes says, rolling the word over in his mouth.  Getting used to the taste of freedom, she suspects.

“Home,”  Steve repeats, firm.  “We’ve got a mortgage and everything on a little house in Brooklyn, you’re gonna love it, I promise.”

“Oh,”  Barnes says, plainly.

“You’ll stay with us, won’t you, Buck,”  Steve pleads, eagerness turning the offer into a non-question.

“Shouldn’t you ask your wife first?”  Barnes says, and the weight of his attention turns to her.

“Whatever you want, Barnes.  It’s up to you.” Peggy gives him a way out, just in case he would rather not live with them.  It’s a possibility, given his apparent feelings for Steve. If the person she loved was in love with someone else, she would prefer to avoid their mutual cow eyes.

“James,”  he states, and Peggy turns to him in surprise.  He’s a man worn down, missing an arm, but his eyes are steel, and not just in colour.  “Call me James. It only seems fair, considering you’re married to my best friend.”

“James,”  she tries the name on her tongue, and finds it pleasing.

 _James_ smiles, and it’s like watching him crumble again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song stuck in Steve’s head is “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” as sung by Marvin Gaye, cause you know after Sam introduced him to Trouble Man, he went and bought all of Gaye’s records (And he misses Sam a whole lot, so that's a factor...)
> 
> Also, all the Russian is courtesy of Google Translate...


	3. Bucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out this Bucky is incredibly fun to write, so I've split his chapter into two parts. Enjoy!

Bucky feels wrong off, and that's the nicest way of putting it.  Steve pinned his sleeve to his chest like he's Admiral fucking Nelson, stuffed him in a set of oversized clothes, and has been worriedly glancing at him like he's a ticking time bomb since they left the boarding house.

“Are you alright?”  Peggy asks, striding alongside him without a care in the world.  She’s carrying a suitcase with a hidden compartment that could get her killed, and she’s asking if _he’s_ alright.  “You're looking pale.”

“I'm fine,”  Bucky mutters under his breath, and he is.  It's Steve who's going to get them all shot.

Bucky is off balanced, and it isn't just the arm.  It's like he's still frozen under the ice. Steve is just externalizing everything Bucky's feeling.

“You're sweating,”  Peggy hisses at Steve as they approach the departures desk.  “Stop it.”

There's no line, no people except for them and the handsome officer manning it.  It's a desk reserved for tourists, or whatever the fuck they're pretending to be.  He’s sure Stalin would prefer that no starving peasants escaped the motherland's embrace.

“Greetings!”  The officer exclaims with a practiced smile.  His English is halting and heavily accented, uniform pressed, and beard impeccably trimmed; a prime example of all that the Soviet Union has to offer.  Then his eyes land on Steve, and that smile slides right off his face. “What is wrong with this one?”

“Excuse my husband, he went a tad overboard with the celebrating.”  Peggy says, calm and collected. She mimes swinging back a drink.

The officer grunts.  “He must keep control of bowels,”  he says out of nowhere. Which makes Bucky think that something dire was lost in translation.  Unless that’s just what Russian vodka does to a person...

“Bowels?”  Peggy says, and now she’s the one who’s gone pale.

“Bowels,”  the officer repeats.

“Bowels,”  Peggy says for good measure.

“Can everyone please stop saying ‘bowels’?”  Steve pleads weakly.

The officer frowns deeply.  “In Bolshevist Russia,” he starts, emphasizing every word with a stab of his finger.  “When you make mess, you clean it up.”

Bucky suffers through an overwhelming urge to snap that finger.  Peggy just grimaces, rubbing a blushing Steve’s back. “I'm sure we can keep him from soiling himself.”

The officer smiles again.  It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Please, kind and thank you.”

He takes the exit visas Peggy hands to him, studying the pictures in their fake passports with a keen eye.  Then he fills out a lengthy form, writing something in the black space at the bottom. For all Bucky knows it’s probably, ‘the blonde one is smuggling something shoved up his ass.  Please check. Kind and thank you.’

Eventually, he sets down the pen and stamps their visas, handing them to Bucky, who just gives them back to Peggy.

“I hope you enjoyed your stay,”  he says, eyes resting on Bucky’s pinned sleeve.  Bucky stares at him for a few moments too long, and a terrifying blankness settles over the officer’s face.

Peggy discreetly stomps on his toe, and Bucky’s lips form around something he hopes is a smile.

“Oh, it was smashing,”  he says with a terrible attempt at an English accent.  “Tip top brilliant.” Bucky winces, he can practically feel Peggy’s stare digging into the side of his head.

“I am glad,”  the officer says, waving them through the gate.  “Comrade Stalin thanks you for your visit.”

***

Steve only stops looking like he wants to throw up the contents of his stomach when they transfer trains in Warsaw.  The city is still rebuilding, and the Red Army’s presence is painfully obvious, but the Republic of Poland is just a Soviet satellite state.  The Polish have much more important things on their minds then a couple of tourists passing through.

Bucky leaves a sleeping Steve in their compartment, and joins Peggy in the dining car.  She’s sitting by the window, the countryside flying by in a blur, haunted by the ghost of a devastating war.

“Tea?”  She offers, gesturing to a steaming pot.  “It’s mint, not black. Unfortunate, really, but there’s a shortage this far east.”

Bucky pours himself a cup.  The train’s rattling makes him spill a few drops on the pristine tablecloth.  He glances around. “Sugar’s in short supply, too?”

“Yes.”  She takes a sip.  “But you don’t drink mint tea with sugar,”  Peggy points out.

Bucky grunts, and sets down the cup.  It sloshes over the rim, yellow and unappetizing.

“Who’s bankrolling all of this?”  Bucky gestures at the finery around them.  Sugar may be in short supply, but expensive wood panelling is not.  This train runs through communist territory, but it doesn’t hold up to any of their mandates.

“Howard,”  Peggy says.

“Why?”

“He has a conscience?”  Peggy suggests.

Bucky laughs.  “The only person Howard cares about is Steve, and that’s just because he sees Steve as an extension of himself.  So really, the only person Howard cares about is Howard.”

“You’re right.”  Peggy nods, drumming her nails on the tablecloth.

Her sleeves are long to her wrists, but Bucky catches a flash of bruising from when he grabbed her at the facility.  The guilt hits like a blow to the head. It proves he’s still human.

“Which means he needs to be in Steve’s good graces,”  she says. “The best way for that to happen is to aid in your rescue.”

Bucky leans back in the chair.  Rubbing a hand over his face, he curses Steve.  Curses the fact that he’s never left well enough alone.  “What did that idiot promise him?”

“Nothing,”  Peggy says simply.  “Steve turned his big blue eyes on Howard, and he folded like a stack of cards.  You know how persuasive he can be.”

Bucky shakes his head, amused.  They fall into a comfortable silence.  Peggy looks out the window as the sun sets behind a forest older than the oldest building in Manhattan.  Bucky watches the dining car fill up for dinner service.

He clears his throat, and Peggy’s attention returns to him.  “If I tell you something, could you swear you won’t hate me?”

Peggy shakes her head.  “I can make no such promise.  What I can do is promise to consider the reasoning behind whatever you’ve done.”

Bucky scratches the back of his neck.  “Fair enough.” Staring into his cold cup of tea, he makes his confession.  “Right after you pulled me from the machine I saw the ring on your finger, and I hated you.”

“Because in your mind Steve was dead, and you thought I married someone else,”  Peggy says, hitting the nail smack on the head.

“Yeah,”  Bucky says, sheepish.  “It was a shit thing to assume that Steve owned you, even in death.”

“That is pretty... shit,”  Peggy says, a hint of amusement in her tone.

“Can I tell you something else?”  He works his jaw, digging up enough courage to look at Peggy.  She really is beautiful. All chestnut curls and warm eyes. Steve’s a lucky man.

Peggy gestures, giving him wordless permission to speak his mind.

Bucky’s feeling particularly fatalistic today, so he does.  “When Steve burst through that door, I hated you for an entirely different reason.”

Peggy blinks at him, startled by his admission.  He’s prepared to have mint tea thrown in his face and for disgust to twist her pretty features.  But instead she does something unexpected. She laughs, but it isn’t that of a cruel woman who knows she’s won.

Peggy reaches across the table, and takes his hand, squeezing it.  “James, I know.” He looks deep into her eyes, and sees not a trace of pity.  “I know, and I don’t hate you.”

***

A chrome 307 waits for them at Orly airfield just a few miles south of the Paris suburbs.  It’s an impressive plane, manned by an expensive flight crew, showing off the wealth of the man whose name is painted on its side.

Speaking of Howard Stark.  He stands at the top of the plane’s steps, flanked by a gorgeous woman in a stewardess uniform.

“Sergeant Barnes,”  Howard calls out. “Nice to see you alive and kicking.  Though it appears you’ve lost something important.”

Bucky shades his vision from the glare reflecting off the plane’s shiny body.  The crew collects their baggage from the taxi. That is until Steve notices what they’re doing and takes over, much to their consternation.  Peggy keeps her arms wrapped tight around her suitcase, glaring at any man who attempts to take it from her.

“Do you like her?”  Howard pats the side of the plane.  “I bought the first one from Boeing back in ‘39, years before Pan-Am got their claws into them.  She’s a outdated gal now despite her cyclone engines, but what can I say? She popped my cherry.”

“Howard,”  Bucky says, climbing up the steps.  “You haven’t changed.”

“What’s to change?”  He grins, throwing an arm over Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky shrugs him off, but not before he slips his hand into Howard’s jacket, pocketing what he finds.  Nice to know he hasn’t lost his touch.

“You should let me do something about your little problem.”

“I don’t see a problem.  Do you?” Bucky smiles, and not in a nice way.

“Come now, Barnes,” Howard pleads. “I’ve always wanted to try my hand at engineering prostheses. I’m thinking plastic and titanium.”

“No.”

“You’re a hard man to convince,”  Howard says, and Bucky wants to punch the thin moustache off his face.  “But I talked FDR into letting us create the world’s first super soldier.  An arm shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Dream on, Stark.”

Bucky takes in the plane’s interior, and shakes his head at the extravagance.  Years ago he would have lost his mind over something like this, straight out of a science fiction radio play.  Now all he sees is a waste of space and money. A fully stocked bar takes up an entire corner, just past a curved booth designed to impress rather than function.  Beyond that lies a bathroom. Bucky bypasses the booth, and collapses into a reclinable window seat opposite the bar.

Takeoff is a loud affair, but not as loud as gunfire.  It’s only when they’re cruising through the clouds that Bucky realizes the implications of sitting near the bar.

“Sir?”  The stewardess asks.  She had two of the bluest eyes he’s seen.  Even bluer than Steve’s. “Would you like a drink?”

Bucky glances behind him.  Steve and Peggy chat with Howard in the booth, their heads bowed together.  Peggy’s suitcase lies open on the table in front of them.

“Whaddya have?”  Bucky asks, turning back to the stewardess with his best flirtatious smile.

She quirks a brow, looking Bucky up and down, sweet enough to avoid his missing arm.  “You look like a man who appreciates a Brandy Alexander.”

The closest Bucky’s ever come to a proper cognac is a shattered bottle of the top shelf stuff.  Dernier was so desperate for it, he strained out the glass through his cleanest sock.

Bucky wonders what Dernier’s doing now.  Wonders if he ever saw his wife again. If he even survived the war.

Sobered by his thoughts, Bucky’s mood sours.  The smile slides right off his lips.

“Yes, that,”  he says shortly.  “Thank you.”

Confusion passes over her face, but it’s quickly replaced by staunch professionalism.  She nods her head, then goes over to the bar to prepare his drink. When she returns with it in tow, he takes a sip, and is surprised to find that yes, he does appreciate a Brandy Alexander.  It tastes like a boozier, less frizzy egg cream. He’s thrown back in time to hot, Brooklyn summers when he was a kid. Collecting cigarette butts off the street, and earning enough change to take Steve out to the deli.

His nose itches.  Bucky sets down his drink in order to scratch it and feels wetness sliding under his fingers.  He’s crying. With his back to everyone else, he climbs out of his seat and stumbles into the bathroom, shutting the door with a snap.

He has no idea why he’s crying.  It was a good memory. One of his better ones.  Bucky swipes the wetness from this cheeks. Fuck this.

He pulls out the silver case he swiped from Howard.  Opening it reveals a matchbook and a neat row of pristine cigarettes.  Jackpot. Only the best for Howard Stark. None of that rerolled shit Bucky used to smoke in Brooklyn, nor the cardboard they supplied in his K-ration.

Bucky lips a cigarette, then strikes a match off the sole of his shoe.  Taking a deep breath, the smoke floods his lungs, and he leans against the sink.  His shoulders relax as the nicotine hits his bloodstream.

The bathroom door opens, and Bucky startles, the cigarette nearly falling from his mouth to the carpet below.

Steve stands in front of him, an unreadable look on his face.  But then he’s pushing past Bucky, closing the door behind him.

“What?”  Bucky asks, annoyed.

Steve plucks the cigarette from his lips.  Just as Bucky’s about to curse him out, he sticks it in his own mouth, taking a long, deep drag.  His eyes close to slits, and the cherry burns a bright red.

Bucky’s tongue feels like sandpaper.  He licks his lips.

“One day doctors are gonna prove that these things turn people’s lungs to ash,”  Steve says out of nowhere.

Bucky clears his throat.  “Is that so?”

Steve shrugs.  “I figure that’s the way our generation ends.  Alcoholism from drowning out all the wars they make us fight.”  Acrid smoke pours from his nose, as he studies the cigarette between his fingers.  He stubs it out on the faucet. “And cancer.” Steve raises his eyebrows at Bucky. “Peggy and Mabel aren’t super soldiers like us.”

“Who’s Mabel?”

“The nice lady who made you that Brandy Alexander.”  Steve holds his hand open, waiting.

Bucky sighs, relinquishing the cigarettes to Steve’s custody.  “Cut me some slack, I haven’t had a smoke since I fell off a mountain.”

“How are you doing, Buck?”  Steve asks. “Really?”

Bucky runs his hand through greasy hair desperately in need of a wash.  “Oh y’know, missing my fucking arm. I’m like a waddling duck, my balance is shot to shit.”

“You should let Howard make you a new one,”  Steve says, like he thinks being indebted to that narcissist is a good idea.

Then again, Bucky already owes Howard his life for bankrolling this rescue, so what’s one more thing?

“He’s not that bad once you get to know him,”  Steve offers.

“He’s queerly in love with you, so what would you know?”  Bucky spits.

Steve folds his arms over his chest, radiating disappointment.

Bucky throws his head back, groaning.  “Fuck! Fine, I’ll let him make it. Doesn’t mean I have to wear the damn thing.”

“That’s the spirit.”  Steve grins, and it just about stops Bucky’s heart in its tracks.  A potent reminder that Howard isn’t the queer one on this plane. Bucky is.

***

His room at Steve and Peggy’s house is bigger than his entire childhood home.  Technically the government _owns_ Steve, but since slavery has been abolished it means they have to pay him a salary.  And a damn good salary at that.

Bucky has no idea what to do with all the empty space, short of moving his furniture away from the walls to make it seem smaller.  Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that.

One morning he walks down the stairs to the kitchen, and notices Steve at the breakfast table.  He's reading the paper, a piece of toast hanging from the corner of his mouth. Peggy sits opposite him, gulping down her regular cup of tea.  It stops Bucky in his tracks. He isn’t sure where the thought comes from, but before he knows it he’s asking them if he can get a cat.

Peggy and Steve exchange a look, then Steve says,  “Do you want help catching one?” Peggy reaches across the table and flicks his ear.  “Ow!”

She smiles at Bucky.  “I’ll look up the location of our local SPCA, and you can pick one out.”

“Sure,”  Bucky says, even though he likes Steve’s plan better.  Where’s the fun—nay—the challenge of adopting a pre-wrangled street cat?  It would be much more fulfilling to chase one down himself. Bucky used to make extra coin catching rats in his old tenement building.  He knows how to handle the slipperiest of animals.

When Peggy returns that night she’s in a terrible mood, courtesy of her prick of a boss.  Before she disappears up the stairs, she hands Bucky a square of paper with directions scribbled on it, saying,  “One with short hair, please.”

Eventually, Bucky gathers the courage to leave the house on his own.

He walks to the SPCA.  While Steve and Peggy have a pickup truck, he can't drive it with one hand.  Howard promised a fix, but like all his promises to people who aren't Steve, they aren't worth shit.

He ends up choosing a skinny thing with black fur and green eyes.  He figures that since most of Peggy’s skirts are dark, the hair won’t be _that_ noticeable.  Also she likes to weave her body between his ankles, and rub her face against his knee.  Bucky loves her to pieces.

The matronly woman running the pound says she’s been spayed, so he doesn’t have to worry about any frisky tomcats stealing her virtue.  Good. He doesn’t want to get arrested for taking pot shots at strays.

Bucky names her Vivien, after Vivien Leigh, and almost immediately shortens it to Viv.

She takes to Peggy like a moth to flame, rolling around on her freshly pressed clothes.  Peggy pretends to be annoyed, but Bucky sees her slipping Viv kitchen scraps, and giving her a scratches under the chin when she thinks no one is looking.

Viv’s favourite place to sleep is Bucky’s bed, but her second favourite is on Steve’s chest.  Bucky can’t blame her. Given the opportunity, it would be his favourite place too.

The only person she cannot stand is Dum Dum, but that’s just because Viv takes an instantaneous dislike to his hat.  Still, he staunchly refuses to take it off, leaving them at an impasse.

Bucky theorizes that Hydra surgically affixed it to his head after they were captured.

***

Steve takes to gardening like a man with socialist leanings who thinks grass is for the bourgeoisie.

He orders a bird bath from a mail order catalogue, and places it smack dab in the centre of their front yard.  He digs up all the Kentucky blue grass, sulphurs the soil, and plants blueberry bushes in front of their porch. He returns to the catalogue, and orders a series of concrete pots, planting some strange pokey agave in them that always stabs Bucky when he’s walking up the front steps.

Don’t even get him started on Steve’s home renovations.

Steve dons a pair of overalls, and paints their formerly white house an eye searing blue.  Peggy claims to love it, but doesn’t fool anyone, least of all Steve who sulks for an entire week.

One night Bucky wakes to shuffling noises, and assumes a burglar is trying his luck on Captain America’s house.  When he sticks his head out the window, he finds Steve painting the house in his pajamas. A colour revealed to be a warm shade of peach by the light of day.

The neighbours think Steve is a very strange man.  Peggy lets him do whatever the hell he wants, and Bucky’s just along for the ride.  He isn’t sure when he started thinking of Peggy and Steve’s house as _their_ house, but it probably happened around the same time he learned the mailman’s name.

“How’re ye, Mister Barnes?”  Donald asks, parking his mail bicycle by the side of their white picket fence, hat tipped at a jaunty angle on his grey head.

“Got anything for me, Donnie old boy?”  Bucky brushes cookie crumbs off his lap.  He walks down the steps to Donald, and of course gets poked in the ass by Steve’s ‘welcoming’ agave.

Steve’s taken the pickup to a garden show in Yonkers with the intention of buying “roses, Buck, roses!” which probably defeats his anti-bourgeois sentiments.  Bucky hopes he gets thorned.

“A letter for the lady of the house.”  Donald hands over a hefty airmail envelope absolutely covered in stamps.  The sender is someone named Katherine Donoghue. No one Bucky’s ever heard of.

As Donald pedals off on his bicycle, Bucky returns to their cast iron patio set—ordered by Steve from his trusty catalogue, though he had to pay extra for a third chair.  He waits for Peggy.

Right on time, she opens their gate and marches down the path, huffing up a storm.  Bucky offers her the plate of cookies. She takes one, collapsing into a chair.

“You would not believe the day I’ve had,”  she says around a mouthful of cookie.

“Do tell,”  Bucky urges, leaning forward in interest.

“Agent Flynn is a prick.”

Bucky nods.  “That goes without saying.”

She sighs, grabbing another two cookies.  Bucky’s glad he doubled the recipe. “If I told you something, could you promise not to tell Steve?”

“Does it involve him?”  She shakes her head. “Then yes.”

Her pinky traces a swirling leaf on the table.  “Flynn has been more _handsy_ than usual.”

“Than usual,”  Bucky says blanky.  “He’s been harassing you?”

“That man doesn’t know how to keep his attentions to himself.  Especially when they’re unwanted.”

“Have you considered breaking his nose?”  Bucky suggests, and he isn’t joking.

Peggy bobs her head.  “Actually, yes.”

“Hmm,”  Bucky says.  He chews his lip.  “I don’t think you’re asking the right person for advice.”

She deflates.  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“To be honest, I really think you should break his nose.  But if that isn’t an option, have you considered going behind his back?  Use the access to information that your position entails, and do your own damn spy work.  Fuck him.”

Peggy’s smile spreads slowly over her face.  “Fuck him,” she agrees.

“ _Anyway_ ,”  Bucky drags out the word,  “Where does he live?”

Peggy rolls her eyes, fond.  “I am not telling you that.”

Fine.  Bucky will just have to figure it out on his own.  He hands over her letter, and she perks up at the sender’s name.

“A friend?”  Bucky asks.

Peggy winks.  “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

***

He figures out where Flynn lives by hiding in an alley outside the Brooklyn SSR headquarters.

Peggy always said Flynn was a stout man with little pig eyes and glasses ill-suited to his face.  With that description, Bucky easily picks him out as he climbs into a yellow cab. Then Bucky does what he’s always wanted to do in a situation like this.  He hops into his own cab, points straight out the windshield, and tells the driver to “follow that car.”

The driver wrinkles his nose.  No doubt because of what lies in the paper bag at Bucky’s feet, but he drives off anyway, and keeps a reasonable distance at that.  He’s probably done this sort of work before.

He gets out of the cab a block from his destination.  Turns out Flynn lives in a detached disturbingly close to their home.  Bucky doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that one bit.

Bucky sets the bag of cat shit—freshly scooped from Viv’s litter box—on Flynn’s front porch.  A quick glance over his shoulder reveals a street empty of nosy neighbours. He’s not sure what he would have done if Flynn lived in an apartment.

Probably the same thing.

He strikes a match on the brick, and sets the shit on fire.  Covering his nose, he waits until it really gets going. Then he goes ahead and knocks on the door.  He doesn’t stick around to watch what happens. But going by the loud, colourful curses he hears while halfway down the street, Flynn did what any reasonable person would do when confronted by fire on their wooden porch.  He put it out. Probably with his feet.

Bucky whistles the entire walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic veered off in a very unexpected way, it was supposed to be much angstier. Alas, I blame the walkin' talkin' meme that is Bucky. Leave a comment, tell me what you think about Bucky starting the flaming bag of ~~dog~~ cat shit on an enemy's porch thing?
> 
> Also, if you're interested, look up pictures of Howard Hughes' personal Boeing 307. Very vintage sci-fi, right? Now look up pictures of it turned into a houseboat. I laughed.


	4. Peggy, pt. ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh heyyyy, nice seeing ya'll again

Peggy wakes from a dream of her nana’s cloying rose jelly to a face full of bright, blooms.  Pink Damask roses lie on her pillow, clipped of thorns. The scent is heady, conjuring memories of fine Wedgwood china and scones slathered in pink jelly.

As Peggy touches a velvety petal, a smile spreads across her face. “Oh, Steve,” she murmurs, “Such a romantic.”

Steve is nowhere to be found, in their bed, nor in the room.  The straw boater James bought for him in jest—no matter that Steve willfully ignores the ‘in jest’ part—is missing from its hook.  Peggy sighs, then rolls out of bed. The sooner she finishes her morning ablutions, the sooner she can find her restless husband.

Fully dressed, Peggy climbs down the stairs, stocking feet padding along the floorboards.  She finds James facing the stove when she peeks into the kitchen. He's fiddling with the gas controls, cursing up a storm when orange flames burst from the burner.

“Are you trying to set the house on fire?”  Peggy asks wryly.

James whirls around, a guilty look on his face, and tucked behind his ear… a rose.

Peggy bursts into laughter.  Clutching the counter's edge, she laughs so hard tears come to her eyes.  She imagines James waking up the way she did, to de-thorned roses on his pillow.  Oh, but the thought of him burying his nose in them has her in stitches.

James runs a hand through his hair, somewhat dislodging the rose.  “I'm having trouble with this damned thing, the oven is fine, but I can’t get the flame hot enough.”

Peggy comes closer to inspect the stove.  She notices the problem right away, and points to the iron burner.  “There’s your problem, it’s clogged with grease. A few runs with a wire brush, and it should be good as new.”

James huffs, dropping his hand to his hip.  “I used to cook in a pit in the tenement courtyard.  There were no gas connections to worry about. It was a bricked up hole in the ground fueled by coal we filched from the railyard.  This thing…” He gives the stove a withering look. “...is a demon come to torment me.”

“Steve told me you two ate at an automat?”

James wriggles his fingers, as well as his brow.  “You're forgetting, I am very good at catching slippery things.  And creatures pulled from the deep are free pickings.”

“Fish, really?”  Peggy thinks about the eels she and Kitty would catch in the lake by the dormitories.  Rivers near big cities are notoriously filthy, and London eels never made for good eating.  The thought of eating anything dredged from the Thames’ murky depths makes her shudder. Their school was in the country, so any eel they caught was deliciously fresh.   “Are you sure you didn’t mistakenly fish out old shoes?”

James waves his hand, dismissing her concerns.  “The waters at Coney Island is so much cleaner than the Hudson.  Those schmucks up in Manhattan eradicated their entire oyster population in a short hundred years.  There’s nothing good to eat there anymore. Coney Island, though, well...” James smiles down at his feet.  “Steve loved the porgies. Whenever he got sick, you bet I’d be down at the docks with my da’s fly rod. Even if it was the middle of winter.  Sarah would get so angry if I showed up with the sniffles. She wouldn’t let me near Steve, ‘case I pass it on to him.” He gaze returns to her, too many emotions dancing in his eyes.  “Just the knowledge that I was taking care of him was enough.” He shrugs. “He no longer needs me to provide for him, so I guess that leaves me here.” He gestures to the stove, scowling.

“You’re wrong,”  Peggy finds herself saying.  “He does need you. He saved you because he loves you.  You must know that. Even if I decided to deny him help, he would have gone alone, regardless of the consequences.”  Her voice cracks at that, and she curses herself for giving everything away that easy.

James shakes his head.  “He crawled out of a watery grave and crossed an ocean for you, so I’d say you don’t need to worry about me usurping your place in his heart.”

Peggy smiles.  “That’s not something that concerns me.”  And Peggy’s surprised to find that it’s the truth.  “We both have our place in Steve’s affections, and one does not belittle the other.”

James ducks his head, but Peggy can tell that he’s blushing.  He chews the inside of his cheek, then says, “Have you ever been to Coney Island?”

***

Summers in New York are stifling, to say the least.  She’s accustomed to temperatures that barely exceed more than twenty degrees centigrade.  Even Camp Lehigh in high August was preferable to this.

The shaggy dog tied to the chair a few spaces down from their spot seems to agree.  If its panting is anything to go by. She hasn’t noticed the owner return in a while, and if he doesn’t anytime soon, she’ll get up and give the poor thing a drink from her canteen.

Peggy dabs a bead of sweat from her forehead.  With James’ hanky crumpled in her hand, she wrangles a caught curl from her sunglasses’ clasp.  The striped umbrella she sits beneath is yet another thing Steve purchased from his favourite catalogue.  Along with their beach chair, their towels, and their swimming costumes. She would accuse Steve of loving that catalogue more than he loves her, but she’s afraid he would leave a bushel’s worth of roses in their bed to apologize.

“Your husband is so handsome.”

Peggy looks over her glasses at a gorgeous blonde woman standing by the foot of her beach chair.  Her lipstick is pinker than the inside of a conch shell, and her bikini skimpier than those worn by the most provocative starlets.  Peggy pushes her glasses back up her nose, eyeing the woman appreciatively.

The woman in turn only has eyes for Steve.  And Peggy cannot blame her.

He rises from the surf like Neptune himself.  With his sun-bleached hair, and sharp jaw, it’s a miracle he has yet to be recognized.  Americans must believe Captain America is too busy saving the world to spend a lovely afternoon at the beach.  That, or they’re respecting his privacy. Knowing the nosy nature of Americans, the earlier seems more likely than the latter.

“Thank you,”  Peggy says, smiling as Steve slings an arm around James, wrestling him until he too takes a dip in the water.

“Your brother must have been a handsome man, too.  It’s such a shame.”

_Brother_?  Peggy stares at her blankly for a few moments, not understanding what she means.  Then her words register, and she realizes she is talking about James.

It’s strange, but Peggy forgot all about James’ arm.  When he came to live with them, they outfitted the house to make it accessible for him.  Still, he does well enough on his own. If he feels any frustration, he manages to hide it better than she ever could.

She thinks the woman must be blind.  James _is_ handsome, as he is sweet, and if random strangers do not have the sense to see that, it’s their loss.

“Yes,”  she says, unimpressed,  “He nearly died for this country, and all the ungrateful fools in it.”  Peggy folds her arms in her lap. “But please, tell me that his sacrifice is such a shame.”

The woman stammers, turning redder than a tomato.  “I’m… so sorry.”

Peggy sighs.  “What is your name?”

“Ingrid,”  she whispers.

“Well, Ingrid.  Next time please think before you say such things to veterans, and their families.”

“Pegs!  Aren’t you going to join us?”  Steve calls out, jogging up to them.

Ingrid jumps a foot in the air, and runs off, apologizing up a storm.  Steve blinks after her, puzzled.

“What was that about?”  He asks, but Peggy finds herself distracted by the way his wet vest clings to his chest.  Her eyes trail down his long legs speckled with hair. They’re looking a little burned. “Peggy?”

“Hmm,”  she murmurs.  “You should sit here, darling.”  Peggy smooths down her dress, patting her lap.

“I’m all wet,”  Steve says, his ears turning delightfully red.

She’s about to say something exceedingly scandalous, but the dog lets out a heart wrenching whimper, and Peggy’s mouth snaps shut.  Steve turns to the dog, a deep frown on his face. She can almost hear his brain working.

Peggy rummages under the chair for her canteen.  “Could you?” She asks, holding it out to Steve.  If the owner throws a fuss, well, Peggy does not care at this point.  Neglect is just as cruel as abuse.

Steve’s eyes melt, and he takes the water.  Crouching in front of the dog, he pours water into his cupped hand, holding it out to the dog.  The poor thing quivers, but Steve remains resolute, letting the dog come to him. Eventually, thirst wins over fear, and the dog drinks its full and then some.  Peggy takes the time to examine the creature. She notes the mats all over its grey coat, and the fact that it’s a male. He strongly resembles the cairn terriers her aunty bred to hunt the rodents infesting her farm.

“What the hell are you doing to my mutt?”  A heavyset man approaches from the water. Sunburnt to a crisp, he might resemble Dugan, if Dugan had a single cruel bone in his body.  He’s steaming mad, and he encroaches right into Steve’s space. His first mistake. Well, his second. His first was animal neglect. And if the way the dog flinches, hiding behind Steve’s legs, physical abuse is not an unreasonable conclusion.

“ _Your mutt_?”  Steve says incredulously.  He gets the look in his eye that tells Peggy he’s gearing up for a fight.  “Your dog should not be scared of you.”

The man raises his palms in surrender when he finally gets a good look at Steve’s everything.  “Hey, buddy, I’m not looking for a tussle here, but if he gets spoiled I’m gonna have to listen to him whine all night.”

“Maybe if you took better care of him, he wouldn’t be whining,”  Peggy suggests.

“Ain’t no one asked your opinion, lady—”

“Stevie, what have you gotten into this time?”  James saunters over, a towel arranged over his shoulder so it hides his arm.  He grins at Steve, then winks at Peggy. When he looks at the dog, that crooked smile slides right off his face.

The dog cowers, a second away from soiling itself in fear.

“Bucky, this shit—”  Steve starts, but he doesn’t need to say anything more before James pulls his fist back and socks the man right across the face.  James keeps spinning without his left arm as counterweight, and he lands with a huff on his arse. The man ends up in a far worse state.  He falls face first into the sand, and does not get up again.

“Shit,”  Peggy swears, reaching for James, but he pushes her away.  Instead he crouches in front of the dog, letting it sniff his fingers.

“It’s alright, you’re safe now,”  he whispers, stroking it under the chin.

Noticing the unwanted attention they’re receiving, Peggy makes an executive decision.

“We need to leave.”  Peggy picks up the beach chair, closing it with a snap.  “Before someone fetches a constable.” She quickly shoves their towels, and the remains of their picnic into her carpet bag, stepping over the prone body in the sand.  She doesn’t feel bad for the man, he got what was coming to him. Besides, he’s still alive, and James kindly rearranged his face for the better. Nothing a little camphor rub won’t soothe.

Steve jumps to action.  He rolls up the umbrella, tucking it under his arm with the chair.  “Bucky, c’mon.”

“I can’t leave Buttercup,”  James says resolutely, as the dog—Buttercup, apparently—licks his face.

“He’s a boy,”  Steve points out, then immediately winces.  “Gender is an invented concept,” he mutters to himself, like he’s repeating it from a textbook.  Peggy wants to know what sort of literature he’s been reading lately, because she wouldn't mind borrowing some of it.

“Who said anything about leaving him?”  Peggy says. “Tuck him under your arm, and let’s go!”

“I didn't name him,”  James says to Steve, then to Peggy,  “Are you sure about this?” James asks, eyes wide in surprise.  “We don’t know if he’ll get along with Viv?”

“James, have you known me to mince words?”  He shakes his head. “Then what are you waiting for!  Skedaddle!” She exclaims as she notices the distant bobbing of a peaked cap in the crowd.  If they are caught, Captain America might be able to talk them out of a citation... who is she kidding?  Steve would just make everything worse.

Spies don’t get arrested, especially not for crimes they actually did commit.

“Steve, grab him,”  she demands, and Steve follows her order to a tee.  He picks up James and Buttercup, and tucks them under his other arm.  They hoof it out of there, nonstop, all the way to the Coney Island Terminal.

It’s only when they’re seated on the train—Buttercup fast asleep in James’ lap, and Steve snoring like an old man on James’ shoulder—that Peggy says,  “I have no idea how to care for a dog.”

James looks up from scratching Buttercup under the chin.  He frowns. “How hard could it be?”

***

As it turns out, pretty damn difficult.  Their menagerie grows by the day, but Peggy wouldn’t change a thing.

Buttercup has a strong preference for leather shoes.  Especially Peggy’s patent pumps. He dislikes Donald on principal, despite the fact that he wouldn't hurt a fly, and certainly wouldn’t steal their mail.  Viv adores him on sight, however; holding him down and grooming him like he's a kitten in need of mothering. He follows Steve around the yard when he’s doing his garden work.  And once—when Steve’s back was turned—nearly made a snack of the villainous squirrel digging up the tulips.

It’s all rather adorable, and it makes her wonder when two men, a cat, and a dog became her family.  Because that’s what she considers them. Her family.

***

Flynn has been in the foulest of moods for the past week, and he seems all too keen to take it out on his employees.

Peggy bears the brunt of it, but even golden boy Miller is not immune to his wrath.  He sulks at his desk like a little boy after a scolding. Peggy would love for him to meet Phillips.  That man is known for chewing up and spitting out the weak willed. Peggy survived three years with the good colonel, she can handle anything.

Which is why when Flynn orders her to make him a cup of coffee, she doesn’t spit in it.  She’s a professional. She strategically places it on the corner of his desk. The next time he whirls around to yell at her, he knocks the cup with his elbow, spilling hot coffee in his lap.

James is right, vindication would be the only thing sweeter than revenge.  But that’s something she’ll have to pry from Flynn’s cold, unwilling fingers.

Day in and day out, the monotony drives her mad.  At least when she gets home she has the Soviet files stashed in her decoy safe.  Most of it is in code, and it’s taking an agonizingly long time to break, but it’s so much more enjoyable than what she does at the SSR.  At least she knows that when she finally deciphers whatever is in these files, she’ll be able to do something about it. Unlike here, where her job is to hand it over to someone more ‘qualified.’

Mechanically, she clacks away at her typewriter, but her mind is miles away in a safe with damned Russian code that is driving her up the wall.

The typewriter dings, and she finally notices a shadow blocking her light.  Looking up, she expects to see Flynn, but instead it’s James hovering awkwardly in front of her desk.

She blinks in confusion.  “James?”

He holds up a lunch box.  _Her_ lunch box that she… Peggy closes her eyes in embarrassment.  She left the darn thing on the kitchen counter.

“Steve took the truck to the hardware store before I noticed, so he wasn’t able to bring it.”

Peggy takes in his appearance: his wrinkled shirt, and the sweat dotting his forehead.  “Did you run here?” She asks, incredulous.

James shrugs sheepishly.  “Just from the station. I didn’t want you to miss your lunch.”

Astonished, Peggy says,  “I would have gone to the automat down the street.”

James scratches the back of his neck, then deposits the lunch box in an empty space on her desk.  “I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“Thank you,”  she says. Giving him a grateful smile, she pulls the box towards her.  Placing it in her lap, her fingers trace over the enameled tin. Opening it, she peeks inside.  James made her some sort of casserole dish. Whatever it is, it’s still piping hot, and it smells delicious.

Suddenly realizing something, she frowns, closing the lid to keep the heat in.  “How ever did you get in here?”

James throws a thumb over his shoulder, eyes wide.  “The nice lady downstairs let me in.” He says it like a question.  “She called me by my name.”

Well then.  All her co-workers know Steve, so it stands to reason they would also know the other Howling Commandos.  Especially the infamous one who returned from the dead. She wonders what they think of James showing up with a lunch box made specially for her.

As if on cue, a snicker comes from the other side of the room.  Peggy quickly looks around James, only to find Miller and Johnson openly watching them.  Her eyes narrow to dangerous slits, and she’s tempted to take off her shoe and whack them across the face with it.

James turns to see what she’s looking at.  Miller whispers something in Johnson’s ear, and James’ shoulders stiffen perceptibly, his hand squeezes so tight in a fist, his knuckles turn white.

“You can hear what they said?”  Peggy asks in wonder. It’s the only explanation she can think of for his reaction.  Zola must have done something to Barnes at Azzano. It must be how he survived his fall from the train, and it’s apparently amplified his hearing incredibly.

“They’re insinuating that I’m your lover,”  James says through clenched teeth, scowling deeply.

Peggy sighs, exasperated.  “Of course they are. But don’t go leaving cat shit on their porch, they’re both married to lovely women who already have enough to deal with.”

James stares at her in shock.  “I didn’t…”

Peggy grins.  “Yes, I know what you did.  Flynn has not stop complaining about it.  He thought it was some neighbourhood rapscallions, using his words not mine.”

“And you’re alright with it?”  James asks with some uncertainty.

“I wouldn’t say alright.”  Peggy drags a manicured nail over her desk’s cheap veneer finish.  “I still prefer to deal with my own problems, but I did have to duck into the supply closet to have a good laugh.  That alone was worth a million pounds, if I do say so myself.”

James and Peggy grin at each other.

"Say,"  Peggy says,  "Have you eaten lunch yet?"  James shakes his head, so Peggy clears classified information from a spot on her desk.  She pats the free space. "Come, sit, have lunch with me. There's plenty for the both of us."

"But your co-workers…"  James says hesitatingly.

She glares at Miller in particular.  "Fuck them."

James looks ready to dash away for a few moments, but then slowly he relaxes, smiles.

"Yeah, fuck 'em."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm done figuring out what this fic is. It's just a thing that's happening now, I guess. Plot, what plot...


End file.
